The Pattern of Latin American Dependence

Abstract

Much has been written on Latin America’s dependence upon trade, aid, private foreign investment and technological transfers. The structure and trends of foreign trade, the evolution of the terms of trade, commercial policy, the volume, costs and conditions of aid, the amounts, benefits and disadvantages of foreign investment, the obstacles, costs and nature of the transfer of technology: all these are topics that have been subject to extensive empirical and theoretical analysis. Nevertheless, most of the research done has usually concentrated on the independent and separate examination of each of these elements of the economic and financial relations of Latin America with the industrialised countries. This has been both necessary and useful, but it tends to overshadow two very important aspects of the question: first, that there are significant direct relationships among trade, aid, foreign investment and technological transfers, and second, that these variables and their interrelationships are part of a wider system of international economic and political relations.